The Conspiracy Club (14 page)

“There you go,” said Jeremy. “New experiences every day.”

“Like a person with Alzheimer’s,” said Doresh. “That’s the good part of the disease, right — you get to meet new people every day.”

Several moments passed.

Doresh said, “You’re not laughing.”

“Tell me something funny, and I will.”

“Yeah, you’re right, Doc. Tasteless. We tend to get that way — dealing with the so-called dark side of life. To alleviate the stress, I’m sure you understand.”

“I do,” said Jeremy. “Thanks for your—”

“Ms. Banks,” said Doresh. “She worked with Alzheimer’s patients. All kinds of patients with . . . whadyacallit — cognitive problems?”

“That’s right.”

“I hear some folks at the hospital make jokes about that. Call it ‘the vegetable garden.’ Sounds like you guys aren’t that different than us. People need to cope.”

“They do—”

“How’re you coping, Doc? You doing okay, otherwise?”

“Otherwise?”

“Other than wondering about the evidence.”

“Oh, sure,” said Jeremy. “Life’s a blast.”

He hung up, sat there trembling, was still unsteady when he walked to the box down the hall and collected his mail.

Totally irrational, calling Doresh. What could he have hoped to accomplish?

The second article had spooked him. Made it impossible for him to brush it off as a mail screwup. But what if he was wrong, and some fool had simply made the same mistake twice?

Dissection . . . even if someone
was
playing with his head, there couldn’t be any real connection to Jocelyn.

Could it be Arthur?

Jeremy entertained visions of the old man stockpiling interoffice envelopes and other hospital supplies in his musty old Victorian house.

Retired, but hanging on.

Hoarding was consistent with Arthur’s clothing, his car, his excessive reminiscences. Holding on to old things.

Living in the past. An inability to let go.

Jeremy vowed to forget about him and the envelopes, once and for all. Time to keep going on his book chapter, which miraculously seemed to be falling into place. Since receiving the first laser article and realizing how poorly written it was — how clunky and pompous most medical writing was — he’d decided he could do better.

He’d written twenty good pages, done a redraft, felt satisfied he was on his way.

Onward: the book and Angela.

They’d seen each other only twice during the last eight days, made love on both occasions, drunk wine, talked for hours, seemed to be moving toward that comfort two people experience when the chemistry quiets but doesn’t vanish.

Shoptalk with Angela had cleared one thing up: It was she who’d given his name to Dr. Ted Dirgrove.

“I was rotating through cardiothoracic, and he gave us a terrific lecture on transmyocardial revascularization. Then he brought up the topic of anxiety as a surgical risk factor, and I thought that was admirable, for a cutter.”

“Being concerned about anxiety?”

“Most of those guys, you can’t get them to see beyond their scalpels. Dirgrove actually seems to realize there’s a human being at the other end. I mentioned the work you did — the strides you’d made relaxing anxious patients. I gave the example of Marian Boehmer — my lupus patient. Who, incidentally, is doing fine. Whatever that blood dysgrasia was, it self-limited. Anyway, Dirgrove seemed very interested. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” said Jeremy. “Unfortunately, I didn’t help his patient much.”

“Really?” said Angela. “He said you did.”

“I think he’s being kind.”

“Maybe you had more of an effect than you figured.”

Jeremy thought about the brief encounter with the hostile Merilee Saunders and doubted he’d accomplished anything other than to convert her anxiety to anger.

On the other hand, that could sometimes be therapeutic — if anger made the patient feel in charge, reduced the panic that came from crushing vulnerability.

Still, it was hard to see the Saunders girl as anything more than failed rapport. How long had he been with her? Five, ten minutes?

Angela said, “Dirgrove sounded pretty pleased.”

He supposed she could be right. There’d been instances when patients got in touch years after treatment, to thank him. Some were specific about what had helped.

Things he’d said. Or hadn’t. Word choices and phraseologies that had proved crucial in tipping them over the therapeutic brink.

In every case, the “cure” had been unintentional. He’d had no idea he’d shot the magic bullet.

Then there were the cases where he’d drawn upon every technique in his shrink’s arsenal and fallen flat on his face.

What did that say? That he was a pawn, not a king?

What a strange way to make a living.

“I think,” said Angela, “that you sometimes sell yourself short.”

“Do you?” He kissed her nose.

“I do.” She ran her fingers through his hair.

“You’re a nice woman.”

“Sometimes.”

“I haven’t seen otherwise.”

“Ha,” she said.

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“No,” she said, suddenly serious. She pressed her cheek close to his. Her breath was warm, light, alcoholically sweet. “I’d never do that. I’d never do anything to put space between us.”

T
umor board was canceled for the week. The following session, Arthur was back at the lectern, running the show.

Jeremy arrived late and had to sit at the rear. The room was dark — slides, always slides — and it stayed that way for most of the hour. The old man’s sonorous baritone rhapsodizing about mediastinal teratomas.

But when the lights went on, Arthur was gone, and Dr. Singh had taken his place, explaining, “Dr. Chess had to leave early for a prior engagement. Let us proceed.”

The final ten minutes were taken up by a spirited debate about cell permeability. Jeremy had trouble staying awake, managed to do so by scolding himself:

At least this is science, not some randomized process where the so-called expert doesn’t have a clue.

The next day, the third envelope arrived. Jeremy had nearly finished a rough draft of his chapter and was feeling pretty flush. The sight of “Otolaryngology” in the sender slot froze his fingers on the keyboard.

He thought about throwing it out unopened. Couldn’t resist temptation and tore the flap so hard the little metal clasp flew off.

No medical reprint inside. Instead, Jeremy extracted a newspaper clipping, crumbling at the edges and browned with age. No identifying marks — the article had been trimmed well below the upper margin — but the tone and the locale suggested a British tabloid.

Vanished Bridget’s Chum Found Murdered

Two years ago pretty Bridget Sapsted left a pub in Broadstairs, Kent, after a night of serving pints only to vanish. Despite extensive police inquiries, the fate of the lovely lass was never discovered. Now a close friend of the pretty brunette has been murdered brutally, and efforts are being made to learn if the fate of one girl is connected to that of the other.
The case took a grisly twist when, early this morning, the body of 23 yr old Suzie Clevington was found by a man walking to work on the outskirts of Broadstairs. Suzie and the vivacious Bridget had been classmates at Belvington School, Branchwillow, Kent, and the two girls had remained fast friends. With aspirations as a dancer, Suzie had spent some time in London and on the Continent, but had returned home recently to seek employment opportunities.
“At this point,” said the principal investigator, Det Insp Nigel Langdon, “we are treating these as independent incidents. However, should the facts warrant, we will pursue them as related.”
In response to rumours that the body had undergone horrible mutilation, Det Insp Langdon would say only that the police could not reveal all the details of the case in the interest of an “efficient investigation.”
Suzie Clevington was described by friends and family as an out-going, friendly —

And there the article ended, cut off in midsentence.

Laser scalpels, female surgery, a dead girl. Mutilation.

A Humpty-Dumpty situation.

This was not a postal screwup.

Someone in the hospital, wanting Jeremy to
know
.

Who could it be, other than Arthur?

He called Arthur’s office. No answer. Was the old man still caught up in yesterday’s “prior engagement”? The exigent circumstance that had caused the pathologist to flee Tumor Board before the meeting had ended?

Jeremy realized something: All three envelopes had arrived during periods when Arthur had been impossible to reach. What was that, an
alibi
?

For what?

Slipping on his white coat, he walked to the faculty office and lied to the secretary — an exceptionally cheerful woman named Anna Colon with whom he’d always gotten along — about having bought a gift for Dr. Chess and needing a home address.

“I didn’t know you two were friends,” Anna said, as she handed over the black-bound
Medical Staff
binder. Not thinking to ask:
If so, why don’t you know his address?
Some people were blessed with a trusting nature. Jeremy often woke up in the middle of the night, mistrusting his own existence.

He said, “We’re more like pupil and student. Dr. Chess has taught me a lot, and I wanted to repay the favor.”

“Well, that’s nice. Here you go.”

N
ot the Victorian house in Queen’s Arms that Jeremy had conjured. An apartment in Ash View — the southern suburbs, far from the water, a good twenty miles out of the city.

Wrong, yet again. Everything about Arthur seemed to be taking him by surprise.

Or perhaps Arthur had given him hints. Ash View had once been farmland and Arthur had spoken, fondly, of agrarian roots.

Birthing calves . . . a sanguinary process. The old man had grisly sensibilities.

Did he sense that Jeremy shared them?

Because of Jocelyn?

Lately, he’d been thinking more about Jocelyn.

He could talk to Angela, make love to Angela. But Jocelyn.

So
gone
.

He needed to
see
the old man.

He hurried to the wards early, saw his patients, hoped he’d shortchanged none of them because his mind was elsewhere.

People smiled at him — familiar smiles, grateful smiles. A wife thanked him, a daughter squeezed his hand and told him her mother looked forward to his visits, he was the one doctor who didn’t hurt her.

He couldn’t be screwing up too badly, fraud that he was.

Tomorrow, he’d do better.

He drove his Nova out of the doctors’ lot just after noon. A rare dry day, but a mournful one, flying-saucer rain clouds looming over the skyline, blackening the roiling waters of the wind-whipped lake. The promised installment of another storm seemed to be bewitching motorists. From the time Jeremy got on the Asa Brander Bridge until he exited onto an industrial road that fed to the southern turnpike, he witnessed multiple driving aberrations, near collisions, and, finally, one accident that bred detours and congestion and foul tempers. Finally, he squeezed onto the toll road, battled traffic for miles before the midday commuter clog dropped off and he was sailing.

Zipping through the flatlands. He’d consulted a map before setting out but nearly missed the obscure left-hand exit that took him past a cemetery big as a town, middle-class shopping, and several retirement communities, each of them touting
independent living
.

Had Arthur opted for that? Canasta and bingo and accordion concerts, he and the doting wife blending in?

A cheerfully colored sign said
Two miles to Ash View
. The terrain stepped down a notch: working-class shopping, gas stations, tire dealers, shacks whose scratchy lawns accommodated rusting autos.

A far cry from the splendor of
CCC
. Whatever that stood for.

Jeremy passed a Dairy Queen and a Denny’s and three hamburger chains. Far cry from
foie gras
, too.

Independent living by day, gourmandizing by night. Arthur Chess was a man to be reckoned with.

Ash View was empty land and stray dogs and scattered multiple dwellings. Arthur’s address matched a large, flat-roofed, frame house overlooking what had once been a wheatfield and was now just endless acres of grass. The nearest landmark was a quarter mile north, a dormant drive-in theater with a chipped marquee.

The rain clouds turned the flatlands to shadowy moonscape.

Jeremy parked and studied the building. Once elegant, now shabby and subdivided. Not all that different from Angela’s place.

The old man lived in a rooming house.
Had chosen to distance himself from the pleasures of the city and who knew what else.

A detached carriage house to the right of the main building had been converted to a four-car garage. Four closed doors, but no locks in sight. Jeremy got out, lifted the left-hand door, and found a Nissan. The next stall contained a Ford Falcon, the third was empty, and the last harbored Arthur’s black Lincoln Town Car.

Prior engagement.
The old man had cut out from Tumor Board early and simply gone home.

Jeremy climbed the big house’s cement steps, read the names on the weathered brass mailbox.

A. Chess
— no degree listed — lived in Unit Four.

The front door was etched glass — a remnant of bygone glory. Jeremy opened it.

Up the stairs and to the right. The house smelled of corn and curdled milk and laundry detergent. The stairway was steep, guided by a spotless white wooden rail. The walls were textured plaster, the same white, just as clean. Below Jeremy’s feet were weathered pine boards under a well-trod blue carpet. Old wood, but not a single squeak. The building was maintained lovingly.

Arthur’s door was unidentified as such.
Okay, here we go.